Alta Equipment Group Inc. Q1 FY2022 Earnings Call

Good afternoon and thank you for attending the Alta Equipment Group First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Florien and I will be your moderator for today's call. I will now turn the call over to Jason Dammeyer, Director of SEC Reporting and Technical Accounting with Alta Equipment Group. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Florien. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you for joining us today. A press release detailing Alta's first quarter 2022 financial results was issued this afternoon and is posted on our website along with the presentation designed to assist you in understanding the company's results. On the call with me today are Ryan Greenawalt, our Chairman and CEO, and Tony Colucci, our Chief Financial Officer. For today's call, management will first provide a review of the fourth-quarter and full-year financial results. We will begin with some prepared remarks before we open the call for your questions. Before we get started, I'd like to remind everyone that this conference call may contain certain forward-looking statements, including statements about future financial results, our business strategy and financial outlook achievements of the company and other non-historical statements as described in our press release. These forward-looking statements are subject to both known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, including those related to Alta’s growth, market opportunity and general economic and business conditions. We have based these forward-looking statements loosely on our current expectations and projections about future events, and financial trends that we believe may affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Although we believe these expectations are reasonable, we undertake no obligation to revise any statement to reflect changes that occur after this call. A description of these and other risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements are discussed in our reports filed with the SEC, including our press release that was issued today. During this call, we may present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's press release, and can be found on our website at investors.altaequipment.com. I will now turn the call over to Ryan.

Thank you, Jason. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you for joining us today. Our first quarter results reflect the ongoing strength in all the end-user markets we serve and continue to validate our unique and flexible business model. I will discuss some of our first quarter financial highlights and the encouraging industry trends and will then provide an update regarding the solid execution of our growth strategy, including the M&A environment. Tony will then provide a more in-depth review of our first quarter results. Beginning with the top line, total revenues increased 23.4% or $62.9 million to $331.7 million in the first quarter. The dedicated Alta team continues to be laser-focused on operational excellence and as a result, the year-over-year improvement was driven by both organic and acquisition-related growth. Our construction and material handling segments produced significant year-over-year revenue growth on a combined basis. In fact, all our business segments delivered better results than the year-ago quarter as a favorable business environment in all our end-user markets continues to be positive despite ongoing supply chain issues and other economic headwinds. Keep in mind, the first quarter is historically the weakest period of the year due to seasonality issues and we are now into the peak period of activity in our markets. Based on first quarter performance, we continue to maintain our adjusted EBITDA guide range of $137 million to $142 million for 2022, which would be a 16% increase at the midpoint over 2021 results. Let me now provide a few observations on market conditions. Our current visibility regarding demand across all our end-user markets and regions remains extremely positive. Customer sentiment is very high and there are no signs that project activity is decelerating anytime in the near term. Key industry indicators also support these takeaways and our belief that the current up-cycle will continue for some time. Our track record on the topic, our operating performance reflects these trends well. Demand for new and used equipment and rental equipment has eclipsed pre-pandemic peak levels and backlogs now continue to hover at record levels. For example, our organic physical rental fleet utilization was up more than five percentage points from a year ago, and rates on rental equipment have also substantially improved. With more fleet on job sites, our product support businesses are also benefiting from higher margin parts and service revenue streams. The recently passed Bipartisan Infrastructure bill should also be an incremental benefit to our business at some point in the future. Overall, we are operating in a fundamentally robust expansion cycle and our focus on leveraging these opportunistic conditions to grow our business and increase profitability. In terms of our growth strategy, we remain intensely focused on continuing our positive achievements from last year into 2022, which included six acquisitions that added $152 million in revenue and $15.2 million in adjusted EBITDA. Our goal is increasing our scale and improving profitability. As we have demonstrated, this includes continuing to leverage our flexible business model, improving operational excellence throughout our entire organization, adding new OEMs and expanding existing relationships to broaden our equipment portfolio, increasing our end-market diversification and our density within each region, expanding into new states and markets that present solid growth opportunities, and continuing to execute on a robust pipeline of strategic and accretive M&A opportunities. Our track record on the topic of M&A should speak for itself. We take a disciplined approach to acquisitions and will not pursue an opportunity that does not fit our strategic and financial criteria. We have a solid balance sheet to support our expansion initiatives, and we are confident that we can continue to grow through acquisitions and further scale our business for continued growth in 2022. Our entrance into the commercial electric vehicle industry in partnership with Nikola is representative of expanding our product and service portfolio, and this initiative is progressing very well. While we don't expect this venture to be a material contributor to our results in 2022, it puts us in an excellent position to be an EV truck market leader in some of the densest truck markets in the country as commercial uptake of electric vehicles accelerates. Our team has been conducting product demonstrations and we are working closely with Nikola and prospective customers on several late-stage sales opportunities. Lastly, we continue to structure our leadership team to drive future success for our business. In early April, we announced the appointment of Craig Brubaker as Chief Operating Officer, a new position at the company. Craig joined Alta in 1995 after completing his BS in Mechanical Engineering. As Chief Operating Officer, Craig will lead integrations of acquired businesses, share best practices across the operating units, and drive operational efficiencies and controls across the enterprise. Craig brings a great history of success and strong operational experience to this expanded role. And we look forward to the contributions he will continue to make as part of the Alta family. In closing, we are excited about our opportunities in 2022. And working very hard on improving long-term shareholder value. Thank you to the entire Alta team once again, and I will now turn the call over to Tony.

Thanks, Ryan. Good evening, everyone. And thank you for your interest in Alta Equipment Group and our first quarter 2022 financial results. I trust that you and your families are safe and healthy and looking forward to summer, as we all are here at Alta. My remarks today will focus on three areas. First, I'll be presenting our first quarter results which we are pleased with, as our business continues to be positioned well in the current business climate, as we continue to experience high levels of demand for our products and services across all geographies and end markets. Second, I'll be highlighting our material handling segment’s first quarter performance, as historically this segment has been Alta’s pillar of strength from a capital efficiency and profitability perspective. Lastly, I'll reiterate our thoughts around our 2022 adjusted EBITDA guidance, which we reaffirmed in our press release earlier today. Before I dig in, it should be noted that there are some slides in our presentation, which was released prior to our call that presents our first quarter numbers in greater detail than what I will discuss here today. I encourage everyone on today's call to review our presentation and our 10-Q, which is available on our Investor Relations website at altg.com for the first portion of my prepared remarks, first quarter performance. Before I get into the numbers, a quick reminder to investors on the seasonal elements of our business. Specifically, the construction segment in the northern geographies is subject to weather constraints in Q1, which makes a sequential comparison of Q1 to Q4 difficult. Thus, the more appropriate comparison for Q1 2022 is Q1 2021. And on a year-over-year comparison, we outperformed just about every key metric. Now, as it relates to the numbers, for the quarter the company recorded revenue of $331.7 million, which is a good start to the year considering the seasonality I just mentioned; historically, a strong Q1 in our business is a leading indicator for a full year of solid performance. Embedded in the $331.7 million of revenue for the quarter is a 12.2% organic sales increase over Q1 2021, making for a comparatively sound quarter. Similar to the theme of 2021, we saw continued strength in equipment sales, especially as it relates to used equipment and rental disposals, as rental equipment sales for the quarter came in at approximately $41 million. Importantly, as it relates to our product support business lines, we continue to realize organic growth in our parts and service departments in both segments, with that figure increasing an impressive 18.8% in the material handling segment, and 10.2% in the construction segment year-over-year. Additionally, as it relates to our rental business, we continue to realize organic growth in both segments as well, with rental revenues increasing 15.3% in the material handling segment, and 11.5% in the construction segment year-over-year. Importantly, and in line with our expectations, we drove higher rental revenue, while effectively holding our rental fleet size flat in Q1 when compared to Q2 year-end. This was a result of three factors: one, an increasing rental rate environment; two, an increase in the physical utilization of our rental fleet; and three, a prudent approach to our fleet size and a focus on product categories that drive attractive returns on investment. From an EBITDA perspective, we realized $30 million in adjusted EBITDA for the quarter, which is up $3.1 million from the adjusted level of the first quarter 2021. On a trailing 12 basis, we achieved $137.2 million of adjusted pro forma EBITDA which converts into $82 million of economic EBIT or under-levered free cash flow for a 60% conversion rate on EBITDA. As I mentioned on our Q4 call, we expect to drive this free cash flow conversion metric higher in 2022, which we ultimately did in the first quarter. Increases on this metric are a function of driving utilization in the rental fleet, organic growth in our high-margin product support departments and organic growth from profitable asset-light business units, such as PeakLogix. Lastly, and as depicted on slide 14 of our investor deck, on an adjusted pro forma basis, the business is generating just above $67 million in annual levered free cash flow to common equity prior to growth CapEx. In our view, this metric is indicative of economic earnings associated with driving equity value for shareholders. A quick update on the balance sheet and our credit profile: as of quarter-end, we ended the quarter with approximately $250 million in unsuppressed availability in our revolving line of credit and total leverage came in at roughly 3.5 times 2022 adjusted EBITDA, certainly comfortable positions from both metrics. Now, moving to the second area of my prepared remarks, I'd like to highlight our material handling segment and its performance in the first quarter. First, as the foundational element of our business, historically, the material handling segment has been Alta’s pillar of strength in terms of cash flow profile, which has been built over decades of strong market share for high used yield in key metro markets, including Detroit, Chicago, Boston, and more recently, New York City. This historic strength in market share in these dense urban areas yields a large addressable field population, which then leads to recurring cash flows from our high-margin product support departments. I would point investors to slide 17 of our deck, which presents several key performance indicators for the segment in Q1, including $5.2 million of reported operating income for the quarter, a 110% cost absorption rate, and an estimated 20% annual return on invested capital deployed. While the material handling segment provides Alta with reliable cash flows, the segment’s reliability should not dilute the view of its opportunity for growth, as the industry at large is experiencing record levels of demand. The secular tailwinds in warehousing, e-commerce, and logistics suggests there is no immediate end in sight. I'll share a few points that support this view: Point number one, it's estimated that the US currently has approximately 10 billion square feet of warehouse space, with a projected need of another 1 billion by 2025. Point number two, the US warehouse vacancy rate is currently at a record low of 3.4%, and lease rates for warehouse space are up 16% since Q1 2021. Point number three, the amount of lift truck orders in North America for the five years prior to 2021 ranged from 240,000 units to 285,000 units annually. In 2021, that figure was nearly double, coming in at 458,000 units. In the beginning of 2022, this metric suggests continued strength. Point number four, over 70% of the US lift truck market is now electric, indicating warehouse distribution and third-party logistics are continuing their upward trajectory, primarily due to the growth in e-commerce. And lastly, approximately 15% of the warehousing sector uses some form of automation in their operations. Industry estimates suggest that, out of necessity, the number of warehouses using automation in their operation is expected to increase by 50% by 2025. In our view, these metrics point to strong industry tailwinds that our business will take advantage of as we move forward. On the last two points, as they relate to electrification and automation, we intend to lead and not follow. The strategic investments we made with the acquisition of PeakLogix and ScottTech position our material handling business at the center of the technological advancement trend in the material handling industry. Internally, we are deliberately focusing on assisting customers to better manage three key operational inputs: labor, energy, and space. This is messaged through our 'less is more' mantra. This mantra, coupled with our capability to deliver real-time solutions to customers that want to electrify and automate, will solidify this segment as Alta’s pillar of strength for years to come. Congratulations to our teammates in the material handling segment on a great start to 2022. In closing, given our first quarter results, we are reaffirming our annual adjusted EBITDA guidance of $137 million to $142 million for fiscal 2022, as all of the elements we discussed last quarter, tailwinds and headwinds alike, remain in place today, as we believe the current landscape will allow us to confidently execute on our business plan and drive returns for Alta’s shareholders over the remainder of 2022. Thank you for your time and attention. And I'll turn it back over to the operator for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Matt Summerville with D.A. Davidson.

Hi, Ryan and Tony, this is Will on for Matt Summerville today. I want to ask you first about the aftermarket growth which is still double digits in the first quarter. I'm trying to learn a little bit more. What is the breakdown, approximately between the price component and the volume component of that growth rate, and bigger picture, what does the pricing power of that aftermarket business look like? Especially in the kind of market we're seeing today?

Yes, Will, I'll take that one. When we break it into the segments, but roughly I mentioned in my prepared remarks almost 19% organic growth in product support and material handling, and then 10% in construction. I think when you look at the components, right, price and quantity, they're both trending in the right direction. Parts and then you have to think about parts and service. When we look at parts specifically, we really are off to a good start specifically in the material handling business where we're seeing upticks over the counterparts. We believe that this is related to the aging of the field population that's out there, given that equipment supply is suffering, as we've talked about historically. So I would say that the price increases account for roughly 50% at the high end of the organic growth that we're seeing, and probably something much less than that in the material handling business because, again, we are just seeing a lot of volume on the counter. So roughly I would say, Will, 50% on the high end is pricing versus quantity.

Okay, great. Thank you. And then I want to ask you about your recent appointment of the Chief Operating Officer in the business, just trying to learn what was the reasoning and your thinking behind creating that position? And ultimately, how does it streamline responsibilities on yours, Tony and Ryan's part to focus on other areas of the business?

Well, I'll take that. This is Ryan Greenawalt. Craig has been with us since the beginning of his career, and you could think of this new appointment as expanding his role to be a corporate role and an enterprise-wide role. So he's functioning in much the same set of responsibilities but now expanded across the construction vertical and also the new vertical for electric vehicles. So we're taking our best practices and that thought leadership of how to run dealerships, and now applying it to the whole enterprise, looking for areas that we can drive efficiency and standardization. In terms of how it affects Tony's and my day-to-day responsibilities, not a whole lot. It's pulling basically one of our executives out of the operating company more into a corporate role, and expanding that role within the organization.

Understood, well congrats on finding what seems to be a great internal candidate for that job. I'll get back in the queue, thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Alex Rygiel with B. Riley.

Thank you. Good evening, gentlemen. And a really nice quarter. A couple of quick questions here. Your commentary was obviously very bullish, strong end user markets, good demand visibility. But why only reiterate EBITDA guidance in light of such strong commentary?

Alex, I mentioned kind of at the tail end of my remarks there and we feel the same way we did a month or so ago when we built kind of the guidance that the upside to the guidance is really going to be predicated on two factors. One is it is going to be predicated on those equipment lines, specifically, the delivery of new equipment, which we're still seeing a lot of volatility in the supply chain. So it's just hard for us to increase the guidance at this point because it's sort of out of our control in terms of taking delivery. I think the bullishness that you stopped there for a second. The second point on the increase in organically is related to product support. That is something we think we can't control, we're off to a good start. I think we probably need another quarter of kind of being able to see the growth here on that piece. I keep coming back to the first point where the upside to the guidance is going to be directly correlated to the equipment line items. The bullishness that we were trying to convey is more about the demand versus what might manifest itself on the P&L here this year. That was kind of what we were trying to articulate with the bullishness just in terms of what we're seeing on the ground and what we're hearing from customers.

Okay, that's helpful. And then as it relates to Nikola, can you go into a little bit more detail maybe on how that's developing, when we might see the first couple of sales, any other commentary or thoughts as it relates to the intermediate or longer-term outlook for that relationship and other relationships in the EV market?

Alex, this is Ryan. I think we would reiterate that we're going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% of Nikola’s volume. We are actively working on what we described as late-stage sales opportunities, and so an announcement of an order could be imminent. We can't really speak beyond that because the prospects are wanting us to be confidential as they pursue emerging technologies.

That is helpful. And lastly, Tony, can you maybe comment on how you think about interest rate risk and how you manage that risk across your capital structure? Sure. When I think about interest rates, I go right down kind of the list here from short-term liquidity to the back end of the capital structure. Short-term liquidity with our floor plan lines, which are usually tied to some index rate used to be LIBOR, now SOFR, where we're paying a spread over an index rate. Typically, as we've discussed before, those floor plan lines are subsidized by OEMs, given the amount of churn that we're experiencing in our inventory. So on the floor plan lines, there's really not a lot of risk in increasing interest rates relative to the floor plan that would manifest itself into being materially impactful to the P&L. The bond, obviously fixed the back end of the capital structure. And we're at five and five-eighths on that bond that we launched just over a year ago today. So we feel good that bond, that interest rate is locked in here for the next four years, which leaves kind of the middle piece, which is the draw on the ABL loan, where we were drawn about $110 million or $120 million here at quarter-end. Again, we're kind of low in terms of our utilization and our leverage profile relative to generating increased grid pricing. So that $110 million to $120 million is really all that's floating. At the moment, we are constantly kind of thinking about what to do with that piece, whether to hedge a little bit. But again, I think we're talking about any material impact holistically. We think that our business model suggests that we can pass some of these higher costs along to customers in the form of just increased pricing. So that's how we think about it.

Our next question comes from the line of Bryan Fast with Raymond James.

Yes, thanks. Good afternoon, guys. As you see price increases from your suppliers, has there been any issues in passing those on to customers?

What I would say, Bryan, is really kind of thinking about, again, breaking that down into the verticals and then into the business line. So if you're just thinking about equipment, which is kind of the headliner here, in the material handling side of the business, I would say there's some customers where when price increases come through, if they're not fixed with the OEM in terms of the backlog, one of two things happens. They either accept it and they move along, or they potentially cancel the order. I think what's important to mention here is that all of these decisions being made by customers are relative to the competitors. What we've seen today is we have seen some customers drop out of the backlog because they are opportunistic and may be able to find some equipment elsewhere. But for the most part, I think we're seeing some stickiness. One of the other things that is on our mind, to Alex's point, is the increase in interest rates. Our customers are financing through an operating lease or some loan when buying their equipment. So that lease payment is really what we are trying to sell to customers, and so an increase in pricing sometimes won't necessarily move the needle a ton on the lease payment. By and large, we're able to pass along pricing increases thus far. And with the rest of the P&L, any pricing increases that we've seen in parts have been passed along. Certainly, we've been able to pass along increases we've seen in market relative to rental rates. So in the areas of our business where we are cash flow-intensive, they mean a lot to our EBITDA, parts service and rental, we absolutely are able to pass along to the customers. Equipment is a little bit more difficult to triangulate on.

Okay, fair enough. That's helpful.

I would just add that when we talk about it being more difficult, we're talking about new equipment because the used market is very liquid, and the pricing is real-time.

What I would say too, Bryan, is just to highlight, if you dig into the Q, you'll notice that gross margins are used in new and used equipment lines is up across the board. In particular in our construction business, primarily because we've been able to, if we have the equipment, drive margin on sales. On the material handling side, we're seeing increased margins in new equipment, new and used equipment, primarily so we constantly focus on high used yield but the reality is that line gross margin is expanding because of PeakLogix and ScottTech where we're selling value-added equipment, projects that have higher margins.

Okay, fair enough. Thanks. And then I guess we saw a nice build in inventory during the quarter, how comfortable are you with the current inventory levels as you think about meeting that robust demand? Are you seeing any improvement in supply chain just relative to the last two months since you had the last conference call?

I'll take the second part of that call first. This is Ryan. I would say that across the board, there is not any significant improvement. But there is an area that we see as opportunistic. The fastest growing part of the material handling segment today is the warehouse segment. We are positioned competitively in terms of lead times, as the leading brands are out nearly twice as long as we on lead times for that segment of equipment, which is something we're trying to take advantage of.

And Bryan, to your -- to the first part of your question. Yes, I think we saw something along $40 million to $50 million of build on the inventory line, which is actually good considering that historically this first quarter is when we take delivery of new equipment as we head into the sales season, specifically in our construction business. So we were pleased to see that increase in inventory, breaking out the segments we certainly would like to be holding more in the material handling business because we know we can generate revenue if we can get it delivered and prepped and out to customers. On the construction side, I would say, we feel pretty comfortable in that side of the house when it comes to what type of equipment you have relative to demand. That is where some of the volatility comes into play. And relative to Alex's question on guidance, that's where we just have less visibility right now.

Our next question is a follow-up question from Matt Summerville with D.A. Davidson.

Thank you for taking my follow-up. This is Will Jellison again. I want to zoom in on the service line item and that business. It looks like that business historically has generated gross margins in the low to mid-60 percentage range. And those got a little bit soft during 2021 and stand here today just below 60%. So can you talk about what is the path forward to getting that gross margin level back to that historical low to mid-60% range?

Yes, Will, thanks for that. A couple of things: there's nothing, this is more just a function of something that's going on in each of the segments. What I would point out is in the material handling business, if you look into the Q, you'll notice that specifically at high low, which is one of the acquisitions that we did, we had an accounting shift regarding the mapping of costs because of the way their system was working. In the material handling segment, this quarter, we saw 60% gross margins which is what we could expect going forward. But a lot of that has to do with just the accounting for technician time not being able to apply it to work orders in our New York business's old system. So there's really no real business impact there. And then, on the construction side, some of the businesses that we've purchased have a lower gross margin compared to our existing business, so that's impacting the line a little bit. We did see in Q1 some pressure from a warranty perspective, and I think this has come up previously. The more our revenue hits warranty work, the lower the margin. We are experiencing less margin than we had historically in terms of recovering warranty claims. This is not indicative of our ability to pass costs along, it's just some nuanced areas of the business. The construction business in Q1 did 56%, in Q4 it was 50%. Q4 is typically a really high non-billable month with holidays, Q1 similarly with technician training, and then in the winter months, we experience a little bit more non-billable. So I would expect that those numbers continue to ramp up, and we're back to that 60% level.

Understood. That's great. Thank you. And then lastly, I'd love to get an update on what you're observing in the acquisition market and whether or not there have been any noticeable changes since we last got on the phone at the end of March.

This is Ryan, I don't think there are noticeable changes. There's still a landscape with a lot of sellers out there. Their motivations for family businesses to sell remain the same. We're continuing to pursue a very active pipeline.

There are currently no further questions waiting at this time. This concludes the Alta Equipment Group first quarter 2022 earnings call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.